The French president and the British prime minister were in New Delhi recently on high level visits. These were not the routine visits that heads of states make to foreign countries. Their interests were linked to their own domestic politics and to India’s three Ms — military imports, markets and middle class aspirations. What can India gain in exchange?
Forging and consolidating orders for their defense industries was high on the agenda of both country heads. India is in the process of ordering 126 combat aircraft and modernising its military. The French-made Rafale has been short-listed. Even though the final deal was not signed by French President Hollande, it was clear that it is on the anvil. This did not stop the British PM for arguing for the British-made Typhoon aircraft. Talks on defence deals were under the cloud of the unethical practices of large commissions taken by middlemen on behalf of politicians, the most recent one being the AgustaWestland chopper scam. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used the public engagement with the British PM to ask for his help in investigating this scam on the grounds that this chopper is manufactured in Britain. However, more useful than a British investigation would be if India adopted the strictest of anti-graft laws, like that passed and implemented by the British Parliament.
As the world knows, India has become and will remain one of the biggest importers of defence-related equipment. India is modernising its military and has dedicated billions of dollars for this purpose. Moreover, unlike many countries that have resolved their inter-state conflicts, India has continuous issues on its borders. In this context, China is becoming more self-reliant in arms manufacturing and is no longer that dependent on arms imports. India remains an ideal client on both counts. Given the long European recession, arms sales will be lucrative for these countries who believe that it will have a multiplier effect on boosting their economies. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s promise of transferring defence and other high technology needs to be tied into defence agreements.
French civil nuclear energy companies are in the pipeline for making six nuclear reactors in Jaitapur, Maharashtra. There is a lot of local resistance to this plant. Ordinary people in India do not want the risks of nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster. There was no high profile discussion on this deal during Hollande’s visit but since India is still keen on this highly-expensive but dangerous path of nuclear energy, the French, the British and others will hard sell the technology they possess in nuclear energy.
The Indian market is another big temptation. With the gradual but systematic opening of the Indian economy, deregulation and the welcoming of foreign direct investment, European Union countries have been big beneficiaries. French-Indian trade is 8 billion Euros annually, while Indo-British trade is higher than European Union countries. Both heads of state were accompanied by large business delegations. The British are keen to get infrastructure contracts, especially in the proposed Mumbai-Bangalore industrial corridor and other manufacturing zones. Both the French and the British are keen that India sign up an EU-India Free Trade Agreement that is being negotiated. Here too, India has to look into what sectors to protect and which to open for EU goods entry into local markets without negatively impacting our small manufacturing and agricultural sectors; and also balance it with European protectionism that debars many of Indian agricultural products.
Both the Paris and London are keen to link up with India’s development cooperation with other countries in the Global South. However, Hollande’s call to Indian business to collaborate with the French to ‘explore’ markets worldwide, including in Africa, should be approached with caution. The French have been a ruthless imperialist power in Africa and even recently intervened militarily in Mali and earlier in Libya. The British too have a long colonial record and alliances with the US in Afghanistan. India despite the new business aggression in many African countries remains a respected and legitimate ally. India has become a major donor to third world countries. It should thus maintain its independence of relations with the third world, as opposed to doing businesses that are seen as exploitative with former colonial powers.
Both the French and the British have continuous interests in strategic geopolitics in the Indian Ocean, in South-East Asia, West Asia and Afghanistan. They would like India to be a partner in their extended military manoeuvres. Again India has to engage without getting involved in the militarist interventions of European powers in alliance with the US. These interventions for regime changes have not led to democratic revival predicted by these powers but have destabilised countries like Iraq and Libya, increased the influence of fundamentalist forces, terrorism and violent strife.
In exchange for India opening its markets and military the French and the British, like the United States are offering India’s middle classes new aspirations. That is cultural and educational packages. So the French are offering high culture to Bollywood and the British will give more visas for students, and some scholarships in prestigious institutions. Most of the Indian youth who aspire to study and then work in the West will have to pay their own way and then have the uncertainty of unemployment in recession-hit economies.
David Cameron’s regrets about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre are a welcome step. Britain today is highly multicultural and secular and can be a model for its fair play and inter-community relations that the state regulates. There are important lessons to be learnt about such apologies and they do help both people-to-people ties and inter-state relations.
These recent visits by the two leaders show that India has to engage with France and Britain at different levels and also that this conversation has to be transparent and broad-based where the interests of people, past and present, needs to be discussed and accounted for. It is on this basis that cooperation between these countries can increase and flourish.
Anuradha Mitra Chenoy is professor at the School of
International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
E-mail: amchenoy@mail.jnu.ac.in